


The Promise of Light

by prairiecrow



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Despair, Exile, Friendship, Hope, M/M, Prose Poem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-04
Updated: 2012-02-04
Packaged: 2017-10-30 13:50:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/332422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prairiecrow/pseuds/prairiecrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hope is the cruelest cut of all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Promise of Light

I fell from the loins of cold darkness:  
A bastard by-blow of the shadows, with birthrights of ashes,  
Until the most subtle of monsters perceived me and claimed me,  
And led me by stealth ever deeper into his own night.

From my earliest memories  
I have always been a deceiver, a keeper of secrets  
And the author of falsehoods condemning the good and the guilty  
Alike to the grave. Ah, father, how well you had taught me!  
Even your wickedness paled beside mine, til the day

When I threw it away, both the glory and power together.  
A moment of warmth, like a ring or a jewel in a story  
Crafted for children, shone in my breast — and my empire  
Crashed down into ruins. And I, left to crawl in the wreckage,   
Escaped with my life because death would have been an escape  
Too swift and too easy. "Be sure he will suffer," you said.

And I did. And I have. And the shadows are all that attend me.

But now, in this desert, a vision has lured me nearer:  
A slender sweet face that conceals neither daggers nor poison,  
A smile without sorrow, a brown hand extended in friendship,  
A gaze that is open, an innocence crying for ruin,  
A heart I could crush in my fist.  
He would make it so easy:

A moment's amusement, a game to make exile the sweeter…  
And yet, when I'd strike him, I find myself holding my venom —  
Oh, give him enough to instruct him and make him the stronger,  
But never to sicken, and never to waste and to kill.  
I remember this feeling, this warmth, and am chilled to my marrow.

It laid all my towers in ruins… and now, can it save me?  
This hope is far crueler, more bitter than all my despair.  
And sometimes I wonder, dear father, who I should hate better:  
Yourself, for the shadows, or him for this promise of light.

THE END


End file.
